


Promises

by sheepyshavings



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/F, kind of cute, then kind of angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3967672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheepyshavings/pseuds/sheepyshavings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy isn't used to having someone to come home to</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarah_dude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarah_dude/gifts).



Peggy tries her hardest to be quiet as she enters the apartment, she really does. It’s just that she’s limping terribly and still hasn’t had the sense of mind to slip off her shoes, the heel on the left one snapped at the top and holding on only by a few fibers. 

Angie is waiting at the kitchen table. She has on a lavender robe pulled together by one hand, the other hand clutched around a tea cup. When Peggy enters the room, she doesn’t notice at first, gaze trained onto the steam coming from her drink. 

“Angie?” 

Angie startles, her tea cup nearly tipping over. 

“Pegs?” She looks over to the doorway where Peggy is leaning against the wall. Her gaze travels from Peggy’s face (a bruise under one eye), down to her scuffed shirt, and finally to the angry red slash below her knee. 

“That better be blood, ‘cause the last time you got strawberry jam on the carpet we had ants for weeks.” 

To be fair, it wasn’t Peggy’s fault that there had been a spider on the counter, and spiders are one of the only things she’s terrified of. The glass jar falling onto the ground was merely a expression of surprise. Angie had eventually shooed the spider out the door with an old newspaper, but they did have ants for weeks. 

_“Do you like ants better than spiders?” Angie had asked, sweeping up dead ants into the trash bin.  
_

_“In fact, I do.”  
_

Peggy crosses her arms and lets out a long sigh. Her knee is throbbing now, an improvement from earlier when it had hurt when any weight was put on it. 

“I’m afraid there will be no ants tonight.” 

Angie stands, pulling the robe tighter around her waist. Her hair is up in curlers, her face clean of makeup and the beginnings of dark circles under her eyes. Even now, she cracks a smile. 

“Good to know,” she says, putting water on the stove. Peggy limps over and pulls out a chair at the table. 

“Perhaps another time, though.” 

Angie looks Peggy up and down again at that, her eyes narrowing on the thin line of dried blood going down Peggy’s calf. 

Without saying a thing, Angie leaves the room, her bare feet making no sound against the carpet in the hallway. Peggy closes her eyes and leans back in the chair, putting a hand over her eyes and swearing under her breath. 

She wasn’t expecting Angie to be waiting for her, again. 

The past few times she’s returned at odd hours in the morning, she’s found Angie in the kitchen, offering her a cup of tea and a patch-up. 

It’s disconcerting having someone to come back to. 

“Did you get the bad guys?” Angie is back in the kitchen, the first aid kit in her hands, gauze and antiseptic already out. Peggy scoots the chair back and lets Angie kneel next to her and begin dabbing at the dried blood. The antiseptic burns against the raw skin, but Peggy is used to that by now. 

“Yes, it almost went off without a hitch.” Angie looks up at her and she puts on a wry smile. “ _Almost._ ” 

Angie shakes her head and wipes away a particularly stubborn chunk of blood, moving on to a new tissue. 

“You know, one day I’ll figure out exactly what you’re up to.” 

“I doubt it.” Peggy will do her damn best to make sure Angie’s never dragged into her world, living together or not. 

“We’ll see about that.” 

And Angie will do her damn best to ruin that. Peggy wary smile turns into a wince as Angie places the gauze over her wound, gently smoothing it over the skin and taping it in place. 

“All better.” 

Angie stands up and pats Peggy on her good leg, shuffling the supplies back into the first aid kit. The tea kettle whistles and she moves to turn it off, pouring the water into a cup afterward. She brings it to Peggy and places it on the table. 

They drink their tea in silence, as they always do. Angie learned quickly that Peggy doesn’t like talking after coming home from a long night, and Peggy is glad for that. Her body aches like she’s old beyond her years and the last thing she wants to do is dance around what she’s been doing for the past eight hours. 

Peggy is the one to take their empty cups to the sink and wash them out. This is where they part, leaving the night behind as they go to their separate bedrooms. Angie stays at the table tapping her fingers along the edge when Peggy moves to her respective hallway. 

“Be careful, English.” 

Peggy stops and turns back to the table. Angie has brought her knees against her chest, head resting on top of them. It strikes Peggy how small she looks against the vastness of the room. Angie bites her lip and looks for a moment like she might say something else. The silence stretches on. 

“I always am.” That’s a lie. 

“I’m worried one day you won’t come back and I’ll be waiting in this kitchen forever.” 

Peggy’s heart clenches and she almost, _almost_ goes back over to the table to take Angie’s hands in her own and promise. But she doesn’t. 

“I promise, Angie.” That’s a lie, too, but she makes sure to look Angie straight in the eye as she says it. “I promise I will do my best to come back to you.” That’s not a lie. 

She leaves before Angie can say anything else, before she can fully register the tears that had gathered at the corner of Angie’s eyes or the way her hands had been trembling under the table. 

She can’t make any promises, not when she brushes against death on a daily basis, not when a gash on her leg is the very best result that could have come of the evening. She can’t promise anything when there’s a woman who makes jokes about jam and spiders still sitting at the kitchen table, ignorant of the life she leads. Peggy knows all of this, knows having Angie living with her is possibly one of the most stupid things she could have done, for the both of them. 

When she sits down on her bed minutes later and her clothes have been tossed into the laundry bin, she stares at the gauze on her leg. 

The blood has soaked through, leaving a small brownish stain against the white. She reaches down and ghosts her fingers along it. The pain will be numbed by morning, and she has a bottle of extra-strength aspirin tucked away in her vanity if she needs it. 

That night, she dreams of soft hands running over her scars.

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually a gift for [sarah_dude](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sarah_dude/) who gave me the prompt “That better be blood, ‘cause the last time you got strawberry jam on the carpet we had ants for weeks.” After reading it, she said I should post it, so here it is. You're the bee's knees, Sarah. :)


End file.
